In life - whether as a student, a working professional, or as a parent - I've always tried to be prepared. My degree of diligence in preparing may vary, but nonetheless I try to be ready.
Of course, then reality steps in and you may find that any pre-work you've done has just flown out the window.
Take this for example.....
As a parent of a child who was adopted, I try to do my best to anticipate those "tough" questions and think about how I might respond. I try to think about what might be asked and when.
And of course I was totally unprepared to have that "when" be last week, and the "what" be: Kiki grow in mommy's tummy?
Ugh. All my prep flew out of my head. I was stuck looking like a deer in headlights. Like Sarah Palin at a Katie Couric interview. Instead of saying something touching and eloquent, like "No honey, you grew in my heart", I mumbled something along the lines of "No, Kiki grew in another mommy's tummy...we adopted you and now you're part of our family....mommy loves Kiki very much." (Which, you have to admit, is a smidge bit better than "I read all of them, Katie....any in front of me..." Seriously, Sarah. You of the wink and the nod. Didn't you think of buttering up Ms. Couric by saying that you used to get your news from the Today show but now it's all about the CBS Evening News??!) Anyway, mine wasn't the world's worst response, but it certainly didn't seem all that I had imagined. Of course, my audience was a 2-year old, so I think all she really understood was the "no" (she frowned) and the "mommy loves Kiki" (she smiled and put her cheek out for a kiss).
In retrospect, I suppose it went OK. But still. Not like a Lifetime Movie of the Week or anything. More like reality TV. Of course, I'm sure I'll have a chance for a do-over a time or two or twelve in the coming years.
And instead of reruns, I'm hoping to provide some fresh programming.
3 comments:
WOW that's some tough stuff. Almost every day, Amie asks me to tell the story about hour trip to China to adopt her. Lois Melina had a great chapter on that topic in her book 'Raising Adopted Children'. I still cannot get through telling her the story without totally getting choke up and I think I have told the story about 50 times or so!
I expect my first round to be VERY similar!!
That's a little bit better than what I'm dealing with right now. We got a letter this summer from Eriks birth mom saying that she'd like to see Eriks and Lane wants to do it and I am so against it because I couldn't even begin to explain to a child who's almost 5 that he has 3 brothers and his birth mom placed him for adoption but kept the other 3. He's just not ready for it. I said not until he's a teenager but Lane's thinking differently. It's really hard not because I don't want him to know, but because I don't have the answers to the questions I know he would ask.
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